Tele-Conf Call with Juswant Rai, Phil Martin & Richard Shepherd

Juswant: Good evening everybody this Juswant from the Berkshire Property Meet and on this evening we have Richard Shepherd the property mastermind tutor and also we have Phil Martin from Mortgage Rescue and Rapid Property Buyers. Good evening guys.

Phil: Good evening Juswant. .

Richard: Good evening.

Juswant: Good evening. This call is going to last about 60 minutes so what we’re going to do we’re going to cover two main areas. Phil is going to cover the area regarding talking direct to vendor which is something that a lot people are very interested in because it’s something that they need to do on a regular basis if they want to do the property deals. And then Richard Shepherd is going to talk to us about his fantastic evaluation tool bar which we’ve been using ourselves and it’s very useful, covers a lot of information that people always ask him how he do I value that property properly and how do I get the correct information. Well Richard’s taken away most of the hard work for you and put all that into one tool bar which you can use (inaudible 0:00:59) recovery. What we will do is first of all go with Phil. You there Phil? Hi Phil. What I want you to do first is just give quickly a bit of background about yourself and what you…what your…how you got involved in property.

Phil: Okay, okay. Well I’ve been self employed for about ten years, I’m 36 years old, happily married to my wife. We’ve got five daughters so…

Juswant: (Inaudible 0:01:26) just for that last bit.

Phil: Thanks a lot Juswant. So life is extremely busy with my girls and I knew that being in a job wasn’t going to cut it. I didn’t want to be leaving my wife to look after these little princesses all on her own and, you know, having to work away. You know, to earn enough money to look after them in a reasonable lifestyle and take them to a good school and everything would require a big salary and a huge commitment from me if I was working in a job and to be honest they probably wouldn’t employ me anyway. So that was sort of out the window. So for years I’ve been self employed (inaudible 0:01:58) like I said we got into marketing and particularly charity fund raising and that sort of took off quite well and we are able to be full time parents and that was really good for a while. And for me getting into property was a way of securing our position and as the girls were getting older and needing more things and more school fees and stuff and a bigger house I just had to very, very quickly adapt and get a big income and secure the future for them. So that’s where my motivation comes from.

Juswant: So how long…I mean when did you really start getting serious in property. How long ago, was it five ten years ago or how long ago was that?

Phil: Well I went to property networking club, a small event I went to in Yorkford at the time and that was in October 2006. So as soon as realised what was possible in property I just went for it because I’ve always had…I’ve always had this attitude is that I’ll…I’m really worried about this I’m really worried about that. It’s like well what is the worst you can possibly loose. In England you’re not going to starve to death, you’re not going to be homeless so go for it cause you’ll always otherwise wonder what if I had done it you know and where would I be then. So I just thought go for it. So my first completion was January…and you know with (inaudible 0:03:15) well I earned more than I’d ever in a space of ten months after that and really never looked back. You know we sold off our franchises that we were running and just went full time in property pretty quickly within a year so.

Juswant: So you saw…you saw the opportunity, really you saw the potential of it in October 2006 and in January 2007 you did your first deal and from then you just started…did you start the Mortgage Rescue Network straight away or was that something that came up fairly down the line.

Phil: I started Mortgage Rescue Network in October ’07 because we were using a small local brand or a couple of local brands and I wanted something that sounded bigger cause occasionally we were coming up against corporate buyers and things and people would say well where is your this where’s your that and I just wanted something that sounded bigger. And I always liked branding and logos anyway so I wanted a simple logo and something that sounded…and because what I found about property was like at the property meet is that the (inaudible 0:04:16) parts of it so for me being able to have people that I’ve met at networking events and on forums that I could call on if I’ve got a deal. It’s like how do I deal with this problem and how do I finance that or how do I help this vendor. So it wasn’t…it was never just Phil anyway it was always a network of people that would help another so I just through okay well let’s call it network so I called it Mortgage Rescue Network.

Juswant: Good stuff, good stuff. And you’re a big fan of the property type (inaudible 0:04:40) forum cause you’re always talking about how much information there is on there as well.

Phil: Definitely. You know, I often say that I think it’s really important we need to be in the flow of information if we’re going to be in the flow of money and the flow of information really is the networking events like, you know, your networking events and things like (inaudible 0:05:01) forums and various other online forums. The magazines like your Property Network, all of the…and books that have been published all of these things are the flow of information and if you don’t subscribe to it as much as possible and immerse yourself in that environment then, then there’s always going to be little tit bits that you miss. So (inaudible 0:05:19) yourself in that flow of information and staying there and you can’t help to get wealthy. It will just happen if you put yourself in that flow of information and act on the information that you’re given.

Juswant: Fantastic Phil. That’s great. And then what we’re going to discuss with yourself is the direct to vendor which is not doing deals with estate agents which is a lot of people are talking about at the moment but actually sourcing deals and leads and finding them yourself and then actually speaking directly to the vendor. I think some people may…if you could just give a couple of minutes on how you would not through estate agents but other means by which you can get deals where you end up talking direct to the vendor.

Phil: Okay, okay, yeah. Well we…what we…we went on some various courses and things like that so again it’s a really good idea to go to workshops and courses to learn different strategies. And what we were taught initially was do some leaflet thing, do some shop ads, some newspapers ads just to say you’re looking to buy property quickly and you’re fed up with the estate agent, you know, those sort of things and you will get people coming to you, you know, with, you know, the opportunity to buy their property. But taking it a step further if you’re well networked you’ll get other people offering you direct to vendor deals so (inaudible 0:06:31) if you get your name known as perhaps I’m someone who wants to buy in Bristol, I’m interested in an opportunity in Bristol, I’m not personally but if I was that’s what I’d say. Well I am if you’ve got a good deal in Bristol but that’s another story.

If I was somebody who wanted to deal in property in Bristol I’d be saying I’m buying in Bristol, I’m buying in Bristol and I’d put it on the forums, I’d put it say at the networking events, I’d put it on all my cards, I’d put…tell everybody I’m buying in Bristol finders fees paid and people will come to you with direct to vendor deals in that area. But that’s another way you can do it. You can also do Google Adwords, you can buy leads. I mean now I have a vested interest in people buying leads because I bought a lead selling company called Rapid Property Investments that years ago when I first started half of my completions were from leads that I was buying, you know. We were buying leads from Rapid Property Investment network, Cash For Your Home, Quick Sale houses. There’s like about six or seven really good lead sellers that will actually sell you this lead. If someone who wants to sell their house quick and fast they filled in an online form so you can go to these web sites every morning and check and you can subscribe to email updates and stuff. But you can check oh hang on a minute I live in Bogan Ridges ? [ph] for example and you can see when and where leads come up in Bogan Ridges ? [ph] you can buy those leads and deal direct with the vendors.

Juswant: Thanks for that Phil. Can we just a quick another question. I just want to clarify this point cause I hear there’s confusion when I speak to people. What is the difference between someone buying a lead and someone buying a deal cause I think some people actually need to have that clarified cause there is a bit of confusion about that.

Phil: Yeah. I mean it would be…I absolutely agree Juswant. I mean it was easy for me when I first started to know that a lead was a numbers game, that buying leads was a numbers game. So I’d been in sales and marketing so I thought right I did…I set aside a (inaudible 0:08:28) leads were about 75 quid at the time and I said well I’m going to spend my thousand pounds on leads in the hope of getting a deal. As it happens I’ve got a deal by that of six or seven hundred quid whereas there are a lot of people who innocently will go and buy a lead for ÃÂ£75 or a ÃÂ£100 and the vendor doesn’t want to talk to them on the phone or the property won’t value up or the vendor owes too much money and you say well that’s no good, that wasn’t…you know I’ve wasted ÃÂ£75. Yes you have wasted ÃÂ£75 but you could have just easily gone and printed a few thousand leaflets and wasted that as well. So a lead is just a lead and it’s really important to look at the big picture and say I’m going to try ten leads and see if I can get deal out of it because a lead is just an enquiry. But I mean like I said I’ve got a bit of a vested interest in lead selling now only because of buying that company but I do genuinely feel it’s a good place for people to start because the entry costs are very small.

Juswant: Well I’d have to say from my own experience as well Phil and speaking to a lot of successful people like yourself and to Richard and to Glen you know people who have bought a lot of property and who…even people who’ve bought small amounts of property whatever number that is, that the average that you would spend on marketing using newspapers, leaflets all these other Google Adwords, you can spend about if you’re just doing it purely marketing yourself eight, nine hundred pounds for every deal that you do?

Phil: Yeah and I think that’s reasonable because you’re talking…you know we’re in this fantastic niche market which is below market value and a lot times it no money down. So to get an asset like that for nothing or next to nothing is well worth a ÃÂ£1000 definitely.

Juswant: Okay, that’s great. Now what we’re going to…I think we’ve only covered the bit about talking directly to the vendor. Once you’ve got that hot lead in your hand or you’ve put your leaflets out there, the newspaper’s adverts gone out there, you’ve spoken to a number of people, you’ve done the word of mouth advertising which is the cheapest way to get the deal by networking and speaking to people. And you’ve got this deal, you’ve got this (inaudible 0:10:33) in front of you, you got the details of the property, you’ve got the phone number, you know what’s the next step, what should people be doing now?

Phil: The important thing is get back to the vendor quickly, you know, as quickly as possible don’t leave him stone cold and when you’re ringing them don’t just be one of these companies that says you know, I’m going to give you this percentage or I’m going to give you that percentage. They’re not interested in what you’re going to give them. They want to know how are you going to treat them as a person so I mean I think it’s quite important to have a quick chat with them and access actually whether…there’s two types probably of vendor. One is a distressed vendor and one is a motivated vendor, a motivated seller. So they’re very, very different. A distressed seller is someone who’s in a really bad place in their life at that time. They may be facing repossession, a lot of those kind of cases are and they think they have to sell the house but in most cases those people don’t have to sell the house and they’ve been given bad advice from a lot of different agencies. And we can not…you know well really I’ve read…I’ve done…anyone can Google a (inaudible 0:11:42) it’s called Sustainable Solutions To Stopping Repossession. So if anyone wants to Google that, Sustainable Solutions To Stopping Repossession they’ll feel much more confident when you’re ringing vendors. If it’s a distressed seller you can actually say to them, “Well look I’ve found out that there’s a simple form you can fill in at the court and you might not have to sell your house. You maybe you can just get a reprieve with the lender and you know get a new arrangement in place or something.” We’re certainly not in the business of ripping people’s houses out from under them and stealing their equity, you know, because there’s no point being wealthy and free and full time parents and having lots of fun and all that if you’ve got a huge amount of guilt sitting on your shoulders cause you’ve done some bad things, you know. This has got to be the you know you’ve done some really great things to help a lot of people and that’s the side issue all the people we can help.

So the distressed seller is different from a motivated seller. Now a motivated seller typically at the moment is somebody who’s happy to sell their house quick and cheap (inaudible 0:12:41) and they can buy that quick and cheap if they sell theirs quick and cheap. So now the big dream house that they want to buy, the four bedroom house probably want suit us a buy to let property but they can buy it as a residential. They’d be happy with a small amount below market value so we can go in and buy their house off them. Perhaps we…you know we might be buying it 30% below market value but that might only be 25 grand off the asking price but they might have got a 100 grand off the asking price for their dream house.

Juswant: And what sort of typical…I mean what sort of typical person would end up in that? So you’re saying there are people out there at the moment who’ve found their dream home, they’ve seen it, they want to buy it, they’ve made their offer but they don’t want to loose it because they have to leave their current property on the market and they want to sell quick. So they’re motivated because they want to sell the house but they’re not in a position where they have to sell.

Phil: Exactly. So that’s a different type of negotiation really because you know we’re basically two people who are in control of our lives and that’s what we never ever want to position (inaudible 0:13:44) a person who, you know you’re with a powerful entity who is dealing with someone who is weak and vulnerable in a terrible state in their life because when they’re not weak and vulnerable again in a couple of years time, they can then go back and say, “They took advantage of me. I wish they’d never done that,” and we…so far you know we don’t think we’ve ever done that. And I sit down with my vendors and I say, you know I want to be able to sit down with you again in four to five years time and we look at each other over a cup of tea and say wasn’t that a good thing, didn’t that work out really well. And if I don’t think we’re going to be able to do that then there’s no point doing the deal. So it’s really important… Okay motivated seller basically is…it may be that they’re emigrating or they’ve got a fantastic job opportunity their dream job has come up or they’re getting married. You know one case recently we bought two houses because the couple had met each other and getting married and bought another house so they were selling their two houses below market value to buy their one house to live in together that they really liked and starting their new life together. So again they weren’t distressed but they were (inaudible 0:14:46) so they could be together and only have one mortgage.

Juswant: I’m going to have to ask you this question Phil because I’ve been asked this many times and I’ve been asked this by a local estate agent. Why the heck would – I mean I’m saying this politely – would somebody sell their house for less than market value? I mean 30% below market value come one be realistic Phil it doesn’t happen.

Phil: Okay, it definitely does happen and it’s not actually unusual because a lot of people’s motivation like I’m sure yours there’s some things in your life that are more important than money.

Juswant: Yeah.

Phil: Definitely, definitely okay. There some things in…yeah exactly. You know like your wife Sylvia, your lovely wife Sylvia and my children and one case recently where a person wanted to move away because his daughter was ill and needed to move by the seaside. So there’s some things that the money almost becomes an irrelevance when you’ve got a burning desire to go and do something else or be somewhere else. So loosing a bit of equity and equity is a very intangible thing. You know to me or (inaudible 0:15:49) we have the opportunity on purchase to realise a lot of equity straight away whereas most people don’t. Most people…cause a house doesn’t have a cash point machine at the side of the house to withdraw all the equity out of it, every day we’d take 250 quid out. They can’t do that so they’re sitting on what is perceived to be 30 grand or 50 grand of equity or whatever but they can’t touch it, it’s not real money whereas their real dream of living by the seaside it’s powerful they could be there by a month’s time by the seaside.

Juswant: So when you’re speaking to this vendor and let’s say you phone myself up. I’ve contacted your web site, I’ve told you I need a summer house fairly quickly and there will be certain things on the lead like they say they need to sell in the next seven days not in the next three months or six months it shows that they’re motivated. How would you approach the conversation cause a lot of people have in their mind before they even call a vendor I have to buy, if it’s a ÃÂ£150,000 house, I have to buy it at 110 and that’s what they focus on when they phone the person up. I mean I know you have (inaudible 0:16:52) somebody up how would your approach work?

Phil: Well this is…a few questions I’d ask you know get to know them, a bit of small talk and things like that and see whether really our service might suit them in any way, you know. But a couple of things I may ask them would often be have you spoke to anyone else in the industry because there’s no point us making an offer if they’ve already been either totally put off of the industry or if they’ve already had an offer that’s way better than we could ever offer from a local buyer or something like that. So I would often say to them, “Have you spoke to anyone else in the industry?” That does two things. First of all it gets you information on what the competitor thought the property was worth but also it makes you very, very open to them. You’re basically saying I’m not scared of the competition at all. I want to help you. Even if you’re dealing with a competitor of mine I’m still going to help and support you through this. So we basically want to know what response have they had and often they’ll say, “Yeah I spoke to (inaudible 0:17:52) and they really rude they wouldn’t even…you know they weren’t interested (inaudible 0:17:54) said we’ll pay you 70% of market value and I don’t have a clue what market value is. I don’t know. They won’t pay for survey, they want me to pay for a survey,” and they get stressed because these people…most people in this industry or a lot of people come in to this industry thinking it’s a way to get rich very, very quickly. But people need to treat property as a longer term plan. I personally think the niche of below market value is a two to five year plan to do very, very well and successfully. So you know a couple of years down the road yes but if somebody comes into the industry expecting to get a deal now it’s going to be too aggressive and too over the top. I need it at 30% below market value, I need to give you this, no I don’t want (inaudible 0:18:37) property next time you call. They’re not going to do…they’re not even in the same league as any of your delegates to this call are going to be because if delegates in this call can take time out to speak to the person and say well what do you want and the golden question we asked a motivated vendor now and everyone could write this down, those who haven’t’ heard it before is we actually say to them, “So Juswant thanks for sharing all that information. I’m sorry the other people were bit rude to you and not very helpful in the past but here comes the golden question. So Juswant taking into account the current state of the property market, you know I’m sure you’ve read about it as well and we’ve been experiencing it, so taking into account all of that, what’s the lowest price you can take for your property.” And we won’t offer. We’ll let them tell us. So just to recap, “So taking into account the current state of the property market what’s the lowest price you can take for your property?”

Juswant: I think what you’re doing with that question is actually finding out from them what they really strictly believe that they would take and you can see from that question how far they are away from what you know you would have to buy the property for in order to have a deal. Now if there’s a huge gap between what you believe you would need and what they want, it’s going to be you know harder work or you’re going to have to put in a lot more time and effort to make that deal work.

Phil: Yeah, but do you know what I teach a lot of people I work with to say that phrase because it gets me one deal a day, you know a good deal. It blows out the competition because the vendors like it cause you’re not aggressively offering. But I’m still finding that people don’t have the courage to use the phrase cause it takes more courage to actually say to the vendor, “What’s the lowest price you can take for your property.” It takes more courage than oh I can only offer 70. Some people still go in with a figure and the minute you go in with a figure you’ve lost it even if you’ve got the deal cause you might have even got it even cheaper if they tell you. And they’ll be much happier with that deal if they tell you how much they want for it. They’ll be much happy cause you haven’t gone in mercenary saying, “I want it for 30% below market value,” and if they agree with you okay you can have it at 30% market value they’re not going to like you for it.

Juswant: And the deal is more likely not complete. It they purely sold to you on price, a real motivation for selling, you’ve not found out that dream house that they want by the sea or you know what their real reason is for selling and they’re purely doing on price, the chances are somebody will come along and offer them two thousand pound more cause if they…there’s something that you also do. You actively encourage people to speak to other companies if they haven’t spoken to anybody have you?

Phil: Definitely, definitely because I want this to be, if they’re going to go down the route of selling below market value then they might as well get the best deal they can. You know we’ve got so many deals coming through now and it’s quite great. Even I did it at the beginning as well, I don’t want to pressurize anybody in this. At the end of the day they’re the salesman not me so you know the pressure really should come from their side not ours. So I say to them no it’s fine speak to anyone you like and I will be happy to look at your competitors paperwork and I’ll help you through the process. I’ll help you fill out the legal forms if you want. It’s absolutely fine cause I’m learning anyway so it’s helping me so don’t worry. I just want to, you know, learn about this process and see if I can support you. So the most important (inaudible 0:22:06) is that everything has to be their idea cause no one wants to be pushed into things and some of these people have been pushed around and they’ve had bad things happen. You know sometimes they’ve had somebody die and things like that and after a year or a year and a half of being in the house they basically decided, look I’m sorry I can’t stay here anymore we need to sell it and things like that. So they’re just normal people just like me and you and sometimes two or three bad things have happened and so we just want to help them through that process and let it be their idea how much they want it, how quickly do they want to move, you know those kinds of things should all be their idea. So every…

Juswant: So basically I mean what you’re saying is get to know the person, find out some information about them, find out their motivation for selling, their reason whether a distressed seller or a motivated seller and then work with them to see you buying the property as a solution to their current problem not the amount of money they’re going to get if the (inaudible 0:23:08) not the money. And if you focus on the solution then the pain that they’ve got in their life which is currently the property and you say right I’m going to remove that pain from you you’re no longer going to have to worry about that, they’re grateful.

Phil: Definitely. I mean in every single case when you’re direct to vendor it’s not about buying the house. If it was about buying the house it would an estate agent. When it’s direct to vendor the most important thing here is the vendor that’s all that matters. So they are special, they are a unique person just like your mom or your auntie and that…and you have to treat them as if you would not someone treating your mom or your auntie that way. So if I treat a vendor, I’ve got…my rule is I wouldn’t treat a vendor the way that I wouldn’t want anyone to treat my mom or my auntie. So I want them to be happy and say, “Oh he’s fun I love him. I’ll make him some cake next time he comes round,” and you know and even on the phone most of our deals now this year I’ve all done at a distance over the telephone so I don’t get to see (inaudible 0:24:14) face like I used to do all the time but we still got the same kind of relationship. It’s actually critical cause like you said earlier it’s not just the one off sold that day, it’s takes four to six weeks, you know. So we need to know that they’re’ going to stay with us throughout this whole process that’s 28 to 42 days. And there will be…every transaction has a problem at some point where something needs resolving and we need to know they’re just going to be on our side through that little hiccup whatever it might be.

Juswant: And if you’ve purely done it on price and you’ve screwed them down to get your 30% and you’ve nailed them to the floor and you’ve done that deal and when you put the phone down you’re going, yes I’ve just nailed that guy. I’ve just got 30% off his property.” How do you think the vendor feels on the other end of the phone as soon as they put the phone down?

Phil: Exactly. Well they don’t trust you, you’re a shark, and you know they certainly won’t recommend. I mean we’ve had recommendations from people that sold to us so again you’re building a long term business, a long term relationship. You want to (inaudible 0:25:15) get testimonials from them and things like that.

Juswant: I think what you want the vendor to do when they put the phone down on either end after they’ve agreed to sell the house to you, is feel they’ve (inaudible 0:25:27) that they’ve solved their problem.

Phil: Yeah, or that there’s someone out there, at last there’s someone there who cares. He’s given them five or ten minutes of their time and has actually given them some good advice. I had a voice mail today, I’ve not had a chance to ring the lady back, we helped stop repossession just over a year ago, not far from me, we went to see and went court and everything. Didn’t buy the house, they didn’t have to sell house and I just left them with the offers and everything and one year later she’s left me a voicemail. They’ve decided they do want to sell and move back to Lincolnshire. So this is a local house near me, two bedroom house it’s perfect easy transaction. So a year later she kept my details.

Juswant: That’s because you got the trust.

Phi: Yeah, yeah. I mean direct to vendor negotiation and dealing is not for everybody. Some people are far better suited to estate agents and auctions and things like that and that’s (inaudible 0:26:17) succeed in that in place but if your are compassionate about people and don’t mind giving people the time and you want to grow and learn yourself and you’re prepared to learn all the way to help them then it can be very, very rewarding as well. And I actually find it very rewarding personally. Financially it can be very rewarding and absolutely very rewarding personally.

Juswant: Exactly, both. One thing we’ve both come to realise it’s not just about the money. You can make lots of money out of it but it’s the rewards you get from helping people which makes it worth while as well.

Phil: Absolutely. I mean my eleven year old daughter she’s gone to school, I’ve been in a suit ready to go to court to stop a repossession or something like that and the first thing she’ll say to me after school is, “Did you stop the repossession daddy, did you help them?” And they draw me pictures of this superman flying through the sky, this repo man I mean, and a lady standing there next to the house, “You saved my house,” you know. (Inaudible 0:27:21) it’s just that there’s not enough knowledge out there in the market place to help people and if we’ve got that little bit of knowledge then we can just share that with other people along the way and you could still buy houses.

Juswant: Thanks Phil. What we want to do before we switch over to Richard, sorry to cut you off cause I’m conscious of time is also if anybody wants to ask a question of Phil they can press star six to un-mute their phone and they can ask Phil a question. What I’ll ask you is when you come on the line if you have a question just announce who you are. Please say name clearly then ask your question. One question please. Has anybody got a question?

Ollie: Hi this is Ollie Murray I’ve got a question for Phil.

Phil: Hi Ollie.

Ollie: Hi you mate. Phil I think you’ve been aware that I’ve basically published some literature on the sell and rent back market because as I’m aware a lot of (inaudible 0:28:16) some of the people who will apply for repossessions would want to rent it back straight afterwards. I was (inaudible 0:28:26) had your thoughts on the effect of sale and rent back, doing this kind of thing with vendors and also I think you’ve read my proposals and just what your high level comments are?

Juswant: I think what we need to do is focus on…I think you should answer the question generally about sale and rent back and where it’s going Phil.

Phil: Okay. In my opinion sale and rent back can be a fantastic service to distressed vendors. It can be really, really good and we’ve got some long term sale and rent back including a couple that were in the Telegraph you know (inaudible 0:29:02) and are very happy. So I think it’s a very personal decision whether someone wants to go through the (inaudible 0:29:06) process but they’ve got a very short (inaudible 0:29:10) to do it. I sit on the council of rent back charter association, the web site is rentbackcharter.com, and people can actually learn a bit about going through the compliance and application process for regulation on that web site if they want to. But after the one year interim regulatory period and (inaudible 0:29:30) business and they may feel it’s worth applying to be regulated after that one year because the dust will have settled a bit because to be honest the government are in a bit of a mess and really don’t know what they are doing at the FSA at the moment. So that’s my opinion.

Juswant: Cool. Is anybody else got a question?

Pete: Yeah. It’s Pete (inaudible 0:29:49) here. Hello Phil.

Phil: Hello Pete.

Pete: Hi. How are you.

Phil: (Inaudible 0:29:52) thank you. Very happy to be here.

Pete: I’m just wondering you know when you ask the vendor to give you a price, where do you get your figures from? You said you don’t need them anymore, do you not see the property first before you agree a price or how does all that work, you know? Cause surely you’re sticking your neck out a little bit if you’re just agreeing to a price that they give you, you know.

Phil: You know you’re absolutely right. I think all we want to do on the first phone call is find out if we’re in the same ball park area so let’s say we’ve got a house worth a hundred on the desktop figures. I haven’t seen photographs or anything like that (inaudible 0:30:31) I think it’s going to sell at about a hundred in the current market. Now you can actually very quickly get a feel for most areas of the country (inaudible 0:30:41). I’m sure if you’re buying locally you’ll be more aware of your local prices anyway. So at that point I ring them up, have a nice chat and then I say, “Okay, taking into account the current state of property market what’s the lowest price you can accept for your property?” And they say 75. and I say, “Thanks. Thank you very much for that. I do appreciate that.” And I’ll just say, “Look do you know what, I think we’re not far away from where we need to be. I think…I haven’t surveyed yet so I can’t promise,” and I’ll always say that, “I haven’t surveyed yet so I can’t promise you,” and by saying I can’t promise you it makes them want it more anyway. “I think if you can just come down to seventy or if you could just consider sixty I think we should be able to proceed and we’ll be able to allocate you to one of our local buyers.” Now at that point we’ve got an agreement but it doesn’t commit you to the process, it commits you to basically chucking two hundred quid on a private (inaudible 0:31:34) or if not you just say, “Would you mind before we sort of start spending any money would you mind just emailing me four or five photographs,” and they all do that. If they don’t know how to work digital cameras or anything like that then we can put a post on tycoons forum and say can someone pop down to a house in (inaudible 0:31:56) for me to have a quick look for me and I’ll pay you 50 quid.

Pete: So in other words you do a little bit of research before you just take a figure plucked out of the air so to speak.

Phil: Yeah. I mean when you…if you use Richard Shepherd’s tool bar which is brilliant, he’s going to mention that in a minute, you can get six or seven web sites all up at once just by putting in one post code and it will come up with all the rental and sales comparables and everything else. Now the great thing is in UK Law you’re not committed to any property transaction until you’ve signed your contracts so you can say oh yeah I’m definitely going to buy it but you don’t have to definitely buy it. But I don’t say that anyway. I don’t say I’m definitely going to buy it. I say I think I’ll be able to buy it at 70.

Pete: Thanks for that Phil.

Juswant: What are we going to do at the end is allow a few more minutes at the end for questions at the end with Phil and Richard. I mean the question that we’ve just had now leads in very nicely into valuations cause I think that’s one area where people don’t feel comfortable about property especially if they’re buying out of their area. So thank you Phil. Thank you for all the fantastic information you’ve given us so far and if you would hang around till the end cause I’m sure we may have some questions before the end as well.

Phil: Great. Thank you Juswant.

Juswant: Okay Richard you there?

Richard: Hello there Juswant.

Juswant: How you doing Richard?

Richard: I’m very well. How are you?

Juswant: I’m good. It’s always amazing but it’s great to be on this call. We learned some good stuff from Phil already. What I want to do is just like Phil can you just give a bit of background about what you were doing before you got involved in property.

Richard: Before I got in here I was actually an actor. So I spent a good twelve or thirteen years doing (inaudible 0:33:40), doing a lot of theater, some TV, some Radio and also some film.

Juswant: Okay. Well is there anything somebody would have known of the TV programs or films you would have been in?

Richard: A couple of them. I did a film called Two Golden Bulls, I did an episode of the Detective, you know, an episode of London’s Burning, yes. So I think people may have seen some of those programs so yes.

Juswant: Excellent. So what made you consider property as a way of becoming wealthy or was it something that you were interested in and thought actually I’ll have a look into that. How did you go from being an actor to being one of the…to being a leading property investor in the UK and what was the journey that led you from one to the other?

Richard: It’s a good question. It was a bit of a leap to be honest. What happened is that I moved from acting to I went and did a masters degree in screenwriting so it was writing for television and film. And basically when I left there I realised it was probably going to take me a few years to actually write something that was good enough to be shown on film. What I needed to really do is to build up some passive income and become financially free because what I didn’t want to do was to just end up writing for Coronation Street or Amadeo ? Farm and my passion really was film. So what I realised I needed to do was to actually build up some good passive income and become financially free so that I could then pursue what my passion was. And so what happened was that a friend of mine just started reading one of the books, I think it was Rich Dad Poor Dad. I picked up the same book just to have a glance at it and never looked back from there really.

Juswant: I think Rich Dad Poor Dad is one of the things that I read back in two thousand and six and in two thousand five and I’d been working in the same place eleven and half years and I suddenly thought what am I doing with my life. It’s one of those (inaudible 0:35:48) if you haven’t read the book I will highly recommend it cause it will make you think about what you’re doing at the moment and what you’re planning to do with your future. So you read the book and then what was the next step, where did you go from there?

Richard: From there I sort of read the book, I did a couple of courses because I really didn’t know the first thing about property when I started. I certainly didn’t have the credit rating. I mean I couldn’t even open a current account at the time because as an actor I’d just moved from job to job, place to place and really hadn’t established even a sort of a credit record anywhere, any particular house and apart from that really I just jumped in. And I was based down in London while I was an actor/writer and I sort of jumped in, moved to the North of England and I bought off a lot of properties.

Juswant: So you basically saw the…a bit like Phil you saw the opportunity and you thought right this is what (inaudible 0:36:50) moved up north somewhere and decided to start buying.

Richard: And I think that’s the main thing really that probably separates from people who are successful and those who are not achieving that success that they want. I think Phil and I share probably something that is…and yourself as well you know, we’re just ordinary people. Ordinary people that have achieved extraordinary things just by knowing what you want, deciding what you want to achieve then setting everything out to actually achieve that.

Juswant: I think that crucial word there is decision. It’s actually making that decision whether it’s property or whatever you want to do, wherever you want to succeed, so the moment where you make that decision and act on that decision and follow it through that things will start to happen. You decide that you wanted to buy property and you decide you wanted to move to the north of the country and you went and acted on it. There is a lot of time and I’ve been guilty of this where you think about it and you want to do this oh should I do that should I do this. The point when you make a decision to make it happen, suddenly things do happen.

Richard: Exactly.

Juswant: Okay. So I mean what we wanted to talk about is valuation cause Phil or the last question that Phil answered was before…I mean do you do the valuation or any research on a property, if you’re doing a direct to vendor deal and you’ve got a hot lead let’s say it’s come through on email or phone whatever, what’s the process? Do you sit down and get the post code and then do a valuation on the property and then do all this research and then wait 48hours and then say oh maybe I should ring them in 72 hours because you know I don’t want to ring them now cause they’re probably watching Coronation Street or East Enders or they’re probably having their tea, they could be having lunch, it may be too early in the morning, it’s too late in the day.

Richard: I think it…for me I think it depends on where the property is. If the details that I’ve got in front of me (inaudible 0:38:56) may well be a deal here then I may well do a little bit of analysis using my toolbar just to get a fair indication of what…roughly what the house price is without necessarily trying to boil it down to the specifics. But I think one of the things that Phil touched on is the fact that one the major factor that is actually going to decide whether a deal is doable or not doable is if they’re motivation. So what I actually want to work out is what their motivation is first and the best way I can do that if I don’t have the detail in front of me is actually by speaking to them.

Juswant: So you want to know basically what the property generally is worth, you know, a ball park figure without seeing the condition of the property but your main focus is why does the person want to sell.

Richard: Exactly and often I will ask them what they think it’s worth in the first instance because…

Juswant: And you’re not focused on the fact that you want to get (inaudible 0:39:58) your focusing on the fact, why do they want to sell, how quickly do they want to sell and how you can help them to achieve what they want to achieve.

Richard: Yes I think that’s right. It’s really looking at, you know, why do they want to sell. Either how quickly do they want to sell or what flexibility do they want in the sale that they can’t get using an estate agent. And that determines whether I think I can help them or not.

Juswant: Okay. So moving on to your tool bar which is what we’re talking about tonight which I’ve downloaded and used myself, I mean some people have downloaded it and they’re thinking okay how do I actually use the toolbar. And how would you use it and then what would the simple steps be and then what sort of information can they extract from that that would be useful to them if they’re trying to value a property.

Richard: I think what’s very useful from both myself and my valuers and also Phil and his valuers and yourself and their looking at property bills, is if you’ve got a number of Internet leads that have come into your inbox, so you’ve got a web site, you’re advertising on the Internet and you get…let’s say you get six properties that have come through on that day from the Internet. So you can see who they are, you can see where they are based and you’ve got a little bit of information about perhaps what the property is worth. When a toolbar comes in handy is that…I think to start with it’s quite difficult valuing properties in this market. We’re in a down market, we’re told that by the nationwide and by Halifax that the housing market has dropped by 20, 22% in the last sort of twelve to eighteen months. So…

Juswant: If you’re watching news the market is on its way back up.

Richard: Yes, but that’s only really based on the last sort of month or so but at the moment it has over the sort of longer term, over the last twelve months it has (inaudible 0:42:05) the market has actually been falling. And what the finding is that there are so few house sales going through because the market is falling and people can’t get mortgages that it’s very difficult to get what we call comparables. So if you’re looking at, I don’t know, a three bed semi detached house in Northern Kings in this particular street what you want to be able to do is compare that three bed semi detached house against other three bed semi detached houses in a similar area, hopefully on the same street in Northern Kings. And if you look that up it’s very difficult to get comparables and also because it’s so difficult to get comparables you’re spending an inordinate amount of time trying to search for properties that are similar. Using the toolbar what you can do is just put the post code of that three bed semi detached house into the tool bar and it automatically opens up fourteen different sites to not only give you sales comparables or sold house price (inaudible 0:43:07). So houses that are currently on the market, what they’re currently on the market for and then also because we’re buy to let investors it will also give you rental comparables for similar properties in similar areas.

Juswant: So it’s giving basically the breakdown of all the information you need to give yourself an educated guess of what property value is and to…

Richard: Yeah.

Juswant: So when you go…when you’re speaking to the vendor or when you’re agreed a price with the vendor you can go back…you can use the toolbar before you speak to them and give yourself a quick overview and then once you’ve spoken to them and you’ve agreed a price in principle but you haven’t agreed that you’re going to purchase the property yet because you need to do your own in depth research, you can go back to the toolbar and make that you know…spend a bit more extra time finding a bit more about the property, a bit more about the area, what the rentals like so you can nail down what you believe the property is worth.

Richard: That’s exactly right and I think you’ve touched on a good point there (inaudible 0:44:12) enables you to do two sort of different things. Whereas before what you’d be opening is fourteen, fifteen different sites and having to sort of press the button and pluck the post code into each one of them and I know for a fact that when you’re trying to nail down a valuation it can take a good forty 45 minutes to actually nail down a valuation. With the toolbar where they’re opening ahead of you, you can do the in-depth research and probably that will take you ten to fifteen minutes but actually if you just want to get just a broad overview of what this property is worth so you’re looking at a particular property and let’s say you’ve got a three bed terraced house in I don’t know Wivinshore ? [ph] in Manchester. You’re looking at this property and it’s giving you a rough idea. You don’t whether it’s worth fifty five or seventy but you know it’s roughly there then you can do that in about two minutes literally using the toolbar and you can even do it while your on the phone to your seller.

Juswant: But you should really be (inaudible 0:45:14) when you’re on the phone. You can have a quick look at the prices but you should be focusing on the person on the end of the phone?

Richard: That’s absolutely right. The major factor that’s going to make your deal happen is their motivation. Why are they selling, what is their motivation to sell, what are they trying to achieve and that’s that major factor which decides whether a deal is possible or not possible.

Juswant: Excellent. I mean so the tool bar is there basically to do…to take away a lot of the hunting around looking for sites, which site do I use, what’s a good run, what’s a bad run and you basically bundled them all together. People when they go into their browser the tool bar is there and what’s the first thing they need to do in order to get that valuation…start that valuation process going.

Richard: Yeah three …I use six methods, six ways of valuing a property and the first thing I use is what I call a sold house comparable. The major fact of determining the value of a property is what similar properties have sold for in the street hopefully or in the surrounding area within the last three months. So what we’re looking for are what similar houses actually sold for and using the tool bar there are couple of sites that give you that detail but the major one is on the third tab which is nethouseprices.com. So that gives you…the data is linked to the land registry so it can be anything up to three months old but it what’s actually on the land registry in terms of determining what have similar houses prices or what have similar houses actually sold for and at the end of the day that’s the major determining factor in terms of the valuations because that actually determines what we call the open market value, the definition of which is what you’re looking at to sell for in five to six months time if put on with an estate agent and the closest that we can get to it is looking at what similar houses prices actually sold for.

Juswant: I mean when you’re speaking to a vendor sometimes when you’re speaking to them you actually need to maybe bring that in what the open market value is if you stuck it with an estate agent right now and you left it to market forces there’s a price that you would get. However in your case you want to sell fairly quickly and therefore that’s not what the open market value would be would it. That’s the price that you can offer in order to provide them the service.

Richard: That’s right. So I like to make a distinction between the open market value and the asking price. So when the…if your on (inaudible 0:48:15) of a vendor often the vendor may have had an estate agent around for their property and giving them a rough sort of idea of what the asking price could be. Now everybody knows that the asking price is not what the property would actually sell for. The asking price is just you know typically a little bit of an inflated value in terms of what the estate agent would put it on the market at. So even the estate agent wouldn’t necessarily expect it at that point. So what we’re looking for is what would that price…what would that house realistically sell for and that’s the distinction there.

Juswant: Is there anything else you want to add? We’ve got a few minutes left before we go into questions about the tool bar…?

Richard: Yeah. One of the other things is on the tab is it’s if you’re using it right now the second tab is a home track valuation model and home track valuation model is very, very interesting. If you’re not already subscribed to it I can give you a link to that which is if you got to separately www.hometrackvaluations.com/yourpropertytutor. It’s a subscription service. It’s not actually my service but it will cost you about ÃÂ£30 a month and you will get the first month free but what that gives you is similar data to what your surveyor will be looking at. So you will be able to do…

Juswant: I think what we will do is any links that you and Phil mention in the call what we’ll do is we’ll amalgamate them into…we will send those out to people so they can get those as well.

Richard: But why Home Track is so great is that it will also give you…it will give you what similar house prices have sold for but it will also give you quite absolutely key, it will also give you mortgage valuations on that same property. So for instance if you’re speaking with a vendor or you’re with a vendor in the house, sometimes vendors will not quite tell you the exact truth. And so they may say for example, “Oh well I’m not sure I agree with you because we had our valued two months ago and it valued at a 110 thousand.” And if you got the Home Track automated valuation tool then you can say well actually it didn’t because I can see her that it actually valued at ÃÂ£90,000.” So that’s quite useful information for you to be armed with.

Juswant: But where does that information come from that’s appeared on the Home Track just for people’s information. Is it appeared from what surveyor’s have been round and they enter into information into a central database?

Richard: Exactly. So if a surveyor has been round and valued a property for mortgage purposes or even if the sellers have tried to get a re-mortgage on that property then they will actually have to go round to actually do a valuation on that property to make sure that you know the money that the buyer or owner is trying to raise is actually worth what the property is worth.

Juswant: Okay. So there’s a lot of information there that will give you comfort that the property you’re buying is actually worth what you believe it’s worth and then if you’re the purchaser you’re paying for it is, the asking (inaudible 0:51:32) is genuinely 25 or 30% below market value because you could falsely assume…the vendor could say it’s a 110 and you believe that, not do any research and then the surveyor goes in and finds…and actually values it at 95.

Richard: The name of the game at the moment is due diligence. The market’s falling, it’s quite tough for people and the only way of making sure that you’re right every single time is to actually go out there and to do your due diligence. There are no shortcuts in this game it’s just property.

Juswant: And you’re erring on the side of caution when you’re valuing.

Richard: I think you’ve got to and the reason that you’re erring on the side of caution is that your surveyor, your mortgage surveyor will also be erring on the side of caution. And if they’re expecting the housing market to fall, I don’t know four five percent still over the next few months then they will err on the side of caution and I think pretty much you’ve got to do the same.

Juswant: And there is a cost to getting the valuations done so you don’t really want to be going out there carrying out value (inaudible 0:52:37).

Richard: No you don’t want to be forking up ÃÂ£350 every single time and actually you’re very confident that that property is going to go through. I mean fortunately I know that my valuers value very accurately and Phil’s valuers value very accurately but they’ve learned to just by carrying out some good due diligence.

Juswant: And you get to know some of the…if you’re buying locally you get to know some of the local valuers, you know which ones you can work with and which ones you have to work harder with in order to make sure you get the right valuations cause your building a trust with them.

Richard: Absolutely right yes, yeah.

Juswant: Okay and we’ve got about just ten minutes left in the call. Does anybody got a specific question for Richard regarding valuations? If you want to press star six to come on the call.

Tim: I’ve got a question (inaudible 0:53:39) valuation and then a technical issue. What have you found to be the most reliable site for establishing the rental levels both in the case of up to date and correct information and is there any way of finding out what rents have been achieved like you can on (inaudible 0:53:58) values, a couple of values?

Richard: Again the answer comes down to due diligence. On the toolbar there is a site…there are two major sites. One is called Right Move, rightmove.co.uk and basically you can just click a switch there so you say switch to rental valuations and again on the toolbar the other is called vebra. I think Juswant will be distributing these links afterwards but vebra.com. V for victor, E-B-R-A dot com which also quite good. What I specifically find is that there’s no substitute for calling up a local lettings agency. I tend to do is I’ll call up three lettings agencies in the area pretending to be the landlord to see what rental levels I can achieve on a specific property and then I will also call the same three pretending to be the tenant to see if the answer is any different. And that’s the…that’s really the best way that you can actually get a accurate rental sort of assessment from a letting agency.

Juswant: That tip you’ve just given there is something that I’ve heard people saying for years just actually phone up people, ring up letting agents and as a vendor, as a landlord and then as somebody looking to rent properties just to get the information.

Tim: Yeah. The technical thing Richard is can I phone you because I cannot…I have not been able to access your toolbar and I’m just looking…I tried to do it just now and it’s reading, “To open this file Windows needs to know what program’s created it.”Â

Richard: Okay. I mean basically for anyone that is having that problem if you use Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer to download the toolbar in the first place…

Man: Richard can I just stop you there.

Richard: Yeah.

Man: I’ve just used…about an hour ago I used Mozilla Firefox and I got just Juswant’s email and tried to download your toolbar (inaudible 0:56:16) information on your web site twice and I still haven’t received a link.

Juswant: What we’ll do is anybody who hasn’t…have filled the information but haven’t got the toolbar if you send…what I’m going to do is we’ll send out an email after this call with a copy of the call. If you reply back to myself and I’ll put Richard’s email address in there and Phil’s email address in the email I send out and you can email Richard directly. If you have got Firefox…

Richard: If you haven’t received it all I would say is that will just be (inaudible 0:56:48) because people have been downloading it all day I can see from my stats.

Juswant: Yeah. I mean I know at least about fifty people or something like that have downloaded it so if anybody is having an issue we will help you get that resolved.

Man: Okay thank you. Richard my second question just very quickly is over the past three months I’ve spent four and a half grand on twelve valuations and ten of them have come back crap and two of them have come back good and I use Home Track Agency reporting tool. The problem is a lot of the valuers like you’ve mentioned are down valuing properties sometimes at by 30 or 40%. How do you manage to get accurate valuations to stop that from happening?

Richard: Well I stand in a position I’ve never ever had a valuation wrong and it’s one thing get doing your due diligence and managing the valuation, sorry managing…you know working out…getting accurate assessments in terms of what the valuation is. Then there is the whole process of managing the valuation process yourself and managing the surveyor’s visit. I’d like to go into that here but we would be here all night.

Man: Okay.

Phil: Am I live Richard?

Richard: Hmm?

Phil: Am I live?

Juswant: Yes you are Phil.

Phil: Oh, on that not can I also say that having down valuations is a perfect excuse to go back to the vendor who you’ve built a good relationship with already and say, The valuation didn’t come in as we both hoped. I’m sorry would you consider a revised offer.” And 50% of our – not that we get a lot of down valuations but half of them, one in two, the vendor will allow you to make a lower offer based on that. So down valuation is a fantastic negotiation tool.

Juswant: I think that also depends on Phil you building a strong relationship in the first place and actually saying to the vendor that there is a possibility that this could happen and you know making the vendor aware of it and you know if you’ve built a strong relationship and it’s not built around the money or the price then you can have that conversation with them.

Phil: Yeah.

Richard: But if the caller wants to send me an email, it’s not very funny spending out so much money on valuer information for them not to come back but there is a simple process that you can actually follow…

Man: Okay, thanks.

Richard: …to make sure that you can get the right valuation even in a down market. And even in this down market sometimes we’re valuations that are valuing up rather than down. It’s all to do with doing your due diligence first and then managing the valuation process.

Phil: Yeah, also and make sure that we always get photographs before we post a survey cause surveyors are very easily influenced by new baths and new kitchens and equally influenced by old bathes and old kitchens. So if the place is grossy you know the surveyor is going to down value it before you instruct them. So I would never pay for survey until I’ve seen you know photos.

Juswant: Is there particular rooms like the kitchen the bathroom that you would ask for photos of Phil?

Phil: Yeah, yeah they’re the main thing but also we use meetthesurveyor.com as well, they’re a great company for helping you manage valuation.

Man: Can I ask something.

Phil: Yeah.

Man: What it is, is for both of you actually. What happens if you’ve got a property that you’ve done all your due diligence and it’s say 80k and the vendor owes 78k on it. Now you’ve done all this work with him, you care about them and all the rest of it but there’s (inaudible 1:00:21). How do you handle that?

Richard: There’s various things you can do based on what the situation is. You can try and negotiate the debt down if the circumstances are right. So you can get a letter of authorisation and try to negotiate with the lender directly or the lender’s solicitor to negotiate the debt down. The other thing you can do is to convert that into a lease option deal again if the circumstances are right so that the lease option deal that you could basically take over responsibility for the seller’s mortgage payments in exchange for buying the house down the road.

Man: Right.

Phil: Again it’s all a question of getting into what they actually want out of the deal. A lot of people will just say look I just want to get rid of the house and move away then Richard’s solution of the lease option is a perfect solution for them because you’re taking that responsibility off of them and although you’ve only got two grand equity in the deal now you’ve still achieved a no money down deal. It doesn’t really matter. You’ve got the house for nothing. As long as it’s bringing in cash flow profit at some point down the road whether it’s five, six, seven years there will be equity in the property for you to have your benefit. But the main thing is putting some properties in your portfolio to start with that are giving you cash back.

Man: Thanks for that Phil but what happens if the lender who is still actually owns the house effectively decides to get a second charge on the property?

Phil: There is a restriction and a notice put on by the solicitors on Landon street so they would have to…you’d have to give consent for that.

Man: Right fair enough. Okay.

Phil: So they’re not actually…it’s just like to be honest we used to exchange contracts. You exchange contracts and (inaudible 1:02:04) is called exchange with delayed completion and the lease option is very similar to that but you make monthly lease payments at the same time. So your monthly lease payments you can pay them to the mortgage lender like Richard said or sometimes you’ll just pay them direct to the vendor so they pay mortgage. So there’s lots of ways to do it.

Man: Okay.

Phil: But at the moment there’s as many opportunities, Richard I’m sure you agree, there’s many opportunities for a good lease option deals at the moment as there are for the low market value deals and it’s still no money down.

Richard: There are many opportunities for creative deals in this market.

Phil: Yeah.

Juswant: Fantastic guys. It is just gone nine o’clock. I’m very conscious of the time. What I want to do, Phil I mean there’s a couple of areas people have covered now. We’ve talked about the below market value and you’ve just touched on lease options which is a very hot topic at the moment. People are also talking…you know there’s a lot of talk about how to get deals direct from estate agents. So I mean if people want to find out more information from yourself and you known they want to find out about lease options and talking direct to vendors what would be the next step for themselves if they want to get further information from yourself or talk to yourself more?

Phil: Well we’ve got…we occasionally run workshops and I’m very blessed to be working with my friend Gavin who’s helping us run a workshop on the 25th and 26th of July at Heathrow. And that will be extremely reasonably priced and it’s a two day event so it’s going to be really good fun but people don’t have to come on both days they come on one if they want. So people can find out about those at rapidpropertyeducation.com or if anyone would like to just sort of open channels of communication with me my email address is phil@mortgageresucenetwork.com and (inaudible 1:03:55). phil@mortgagerescuenetwork.com.

Juswant: Thanks Phil. What we’ll do is I’ll make sure all the contact details for Phil and Richard go out in any emails that are sent out following this. And Phil (inaudible 1:04:09) if people do want to find out further information about the toolbar or they want to actually meet with yourself in person and find out a bit more about what you do what is the opportunity for them?

Richard: Yeah, I mean just the email, if people want to email me they can email me at richard@yourpropertytutor.com. If they want to meet me in person then I’m holding a very special event with six or rather five of the UK’s top property experts. That takes place at…it’s just before your meeting actually, just before the Berkshire property meet in Maidenhead on the 20th July.

Juswant: Is that near the Holiday Inn?

Richard: That’s at the Holiday Inn, yes in Maidenhead Grand Hotel and so if people want to go if they book on this special link which is mastermindopenday.com/berkshire then…and if they put in the code BPM date for a coupon then they’ll get a ÃÂ£10 reduction on that price so it will just be ÃÂ£17.

Juswant: That’s very generous Richard.

Richard: Rather than ÃÂ£27 for that.

Juswant: What I’ll do with Phil and Richard if you send me any information that I need to make sure that people get and then we’ll make sure it all goes out, what I’ll do is I’ll create a page with the recording of the call and also with the information that you’ve been passing to people tonight.

Richard: Sure.

Phil: Thank you.

Juswant: Okay. I think we’ve got time for one more question. Has anybody got a question? Can you please say your name…

Joan: (Inaudible 1:05:49). Joan can I speak?.

Juswant: Hello.

Joan: Hello, my name’s Joan.

Juswant: Hi Joan. I can hear you.

Joan: I’ve got a question for Richard please…

Joan: Hello, Joan.

Woman: …on valuation. Hello Richard. I’m (inaudible 1:06:08). The Home Track page said it’s (inaudible 1:06:15). I’ve reduced the price to seventy but what will the valuation say when we go…he’s already found out the price that I’m buying it at, will the then sort of value it at that price or would he value it you know like the Home Track report says three sixty five.

Richard: Well the first thing the Home Track report doesn’t necessarily give you…

Joan: It gives the houses in the area.

Richard: It gives…sorry I don’t understand what you’re saying about the Home Track report.

Joan: Okay, the Home Track for…taken through the (inaudible 1:06:55) gives a price for a house in the area similar to that at 365. I’m waiting for everything to complete but unfortunately (inaudible 1:07:10) the valuer, he’s already found out the price I’m paying for it. Is that normal?

Richard: You’re paying for it, it’s very likely that he will value the house above that.

Joan: I know. How do stop them finding out the price you’re paying for it?

Richard: It requires you to manage the survey. So to actually be there to block any communication between the valuer and the price that you’re actually paying for it.

Juswant: Well also I think if you’re buying out of your area then you probably need…this is Juswant – you probably need to talk somebody like (inaudible 1:07:48) and meet the surveyor.

Joan: The house is ten minutes walk from me and I’ve spoken to the agent and asked them exactly that I wanted to speak to the valuer and they said it was highly unusual and it is up to them to give the price of the house.

Richard: Yeah. Joan I mean it’s a really difficult thing to do if it’s already (inaudible 1:08:12) with the estate agent because any valuer worth their salt would find out who it’s on with, with the estate agent would find out the history of that property. That’s why what Phil’s been talking about today has been direct to vendor negotiations rather than buying using an estate agent.

Joan: Oh okay yes, yes, yes. All right I see. Okay, thank you very much.

Phil: Northern Rock and you can get an extra sort of advantage from lenders at the moment to release the capital shortly after.

Richard: Yes Northern Rock are doing that and also Birmingham Mitchhaiser ?[ph]

Juswant: Okay, great. I think…well I think that’s basically it. It is ten past nine. I want to thank yourself Phil and Richard for giving us a very informative hour about property investing in the UK, valuations and direct to vendor. We may get you both back if there is enough demand to talk about lease options cause I think that’s something that people are very interested in. So what we’ll do is we’ll wait for the feedback from the call, if people are interested maybe that’s something you guys would be interested in covering.

Richard: Yeah we’d love to if people are interested.

Phil: Yeah.

Juswant: Okay. So thank you guys and good evening everybody. There will be (inaudible 1:09:26) going out in the next 24 hours with all the relevant information and links that people want. So I’ll speak to you all guys soon.